1 See the Introduction section in Thai south and Malay north: Ethnic interactions on a plural peninsula, ed. Montesano, Michael J. and Jory, Patrick (Singapore: NUS Press, 2008)Google Scholar.

2 See, for example, Nartsupha, Chatthip, The Thai village economy in the past, trans. Baker, Chris and Phongpaichit, Pasuk (Chiang Mai: Silkworm Books, 1999)Google Scholar, and the many citations therein.

3 Terwiel, Barend Jan, Thailand's political history: From the fall of Ayutthaya in 1767 to recent times, 2nd edn (Bangkok: River Books, 2005)Google Scholar and Wyatt, David K., Thailand: A short history, 2nd edn (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003)Google Scholar. Phongpaichit, Chris Baker and Pasuk, A history of Thailand, 2nd edn (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009)Google Scholar, ch. 4 covers the countryside better, and their Thailand: Economy and politics, 2nd edn (Kuala Lumpur and New York: Oxford University Press, 2002)Google Scholar devotes the first 100 pages to the village and agrarian frontier society.

4 Winichakul, Thongchai, ‘Prawattisat thai baep rachachatniyom [Royal nationalist Thai history]’, Sinlapawatthanatham, 23, 1 (2001): 58Google Scholar.

5 Peleggi, Maurizio, Thailand: The worldly kingdom (London: Reaktion Books, 2007), p. 8.Google Scholar For the development of this historiography, see ch. 4, ‘Ideologies’, and ch. 5, ‘Modernities’.

6 Winichakul, Thongchai, ‘The changing landscape of the past: New histories in Thailand since 1973’, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, 26, 1 (1995): 110–14CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Peleggi, Worldly kingdom, p. 162.

7 Lysa, Hong, ‘Review of Tamara Loos, Subject Siam: Family, law, and colonial modernity in Thailand (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2006)’, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, 38, 1 (2007): 189CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

8 Money and power in provincial Thailand, ed. McVey, Ruth (Copenhagen: Nordic Institute of Asian Studies, 2000), p. 1Google Scholar.

9 James Ockey, ‘The rise of local power in Thailand: Provincial crime, elections and the bureaucracy’, in Money and power, ed. McVey, pp. 80–1; Nishizaki, Yoshinori, ‘The domination of a fussy strongman in provincial Thailand: The case of Banharn Silpa-archa in Suphanburi’, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, 37, 2 (2006): 267CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

10 Pasuk Phongpaichit and Chris Baker, Thailand: Economy and politics, pp. 218–19.

11 Ockey, James, for example, in ‘Thai society and patterns of political leadership’, Asian Survey, 36, 4 (1996): 350CrossRefGoogle Scholar, says that ‘the nakleng is often on the wrong side of the law and closely associated with manliness’.

12 Kitiarsa, Pattana, ‘“Lives of hunting dogs”: Muai Thai and the politics of Thai masculinities’, South East Asia Research, 13, 1 (2005): 58CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

13 The date of Khun Phan's birth was registered incorrectly as 1903, according to Wira Saengphet, Phumpanya kanprappram khorng phor lor tor tor Khun Phantharak ratchadet [The local wisdom of Khun Phantharakratchadet in maintaining law and order] (Bangkok: Thailand Research Fund, 2001), p. 55. As a result, biographers offer no fewer than five different birth dates for him. For present purposes, I accept the 1898 date given in Khun Phan's cremation volume, Anusorn nai ngan phraratchathan phloeng sop phon tamruat tri Khun Phantharak ratchadet (Bangkok, 22 Feb. 2007).

14 Chalong Soontravanich, ‘The regionalization of local Buddhist saints: Amulets and crime and violence in post-World War II Thai society’, unpublished paper, Nov. 2004; Wira, ‘The local wisdom of Khun Phan’, appendix 7, pp. 185–7, gives a detailed chronology of the bandits killed by Khun Phan and the officers in his posses.

15 Buri, Okha, Thot rahat khun phantharakrathadet mue prap khamang wet [Deciphering Khunphantha rakratchadet: The lawman with Vedic powers] (Bangkok: Utthayan Khwamru, 2007), p. 60Google Scholar.

16 I am indebted to Amrita Malhi of the Mainland Southeast Asia Writing Group at the Australian National University for this observation.

17 Anusorn nai ngan phraratchathan, p. 37, and Wira, ‘The local wisdom of Khun Phan’, p. 57.

18 See Kitiarsa, Pattana, ‘Buddha phanit: Thailand's prosperity religion and its commodifying tactics’, in his edited volume, Religious commodifications in Asia: Marketing gods (London and New York: Routledge, 2008)Google Scholar.

19 A recent, comprehensive manual with illustrations is Jangphanitchakun, Thotsaphon, Khruang rang maha setthi bucha laew ruai [Talismans for the very wealthy: Pay homage and be rich!] (Bangkok: Khomma Publishing, 2006; 3rd printing)Google Scholar. A companion manual with special chants is Jangphanitchakun, Thotsaphon, Khatha maha setthi bucha laew ruai [Incantations for the very wealthy: Pay homage and be rich!] (Bangkok: Khomma Publishing, 2006)Google Scholar.

20 Jaturawit, , Patihan khruang rang tang daen [Miraculous talismans of foreign lands] (Bangkok: Biphlat Phaplitching, 2008)Google Scholar.

21 See Siphibun, Wisit, Phalang neramit [Laws of attraction] (Bangkok: Fisik Sentoe, 2008)Google Scholar, now in its sixth printing. The pseudo-scientific nature of the enterprise may be gauged from the publisher's name, Physics Centre.

22 Phongsuksawat, Woralak, Lakmuang lakchai haeng ratcha-anajak [City pillars: The victory pillars of the kingdom] (Bangkok: Ban Nangsue Kosin, 2008), p. 70Google Scholar.

23 The story of the amulet's creation is told in ‘Nan Tapi’ [pseud.], Rachan haeng thale tai jatukhamramthep [King of the southern ocean: The Jatukhamrapthep] (Bangkok: Komen Ek, 2007), pp. 11–17Google Scholar as well as in Nawamin [pseud.], Patihan ong jatukhamramthep [The miracle of the Jatukhamramthep] (Bangkok: My Bangkok Publishing House, 2007), pp. 24–36.

24 Nawamin, ‘The miracle of the Jatukhamramthep’, pp. 73–92.

25 Bangkok Post, 13 Feb. 1969. One of the few biographers to mention Khun Phan's brief career as a member of parliament is Chalong Jeyakhom, Phor lor tor tor khun phantharakrathadet [Police major general Khun Phantharakratchadet] (Kanchanaburi: Rom Fa Sayam, n.d.), p. 201.

26 Among the few biographers to mention Khun Phan's bout with yaws, or any childhood illness for that matter, is Kongsamut, Samphan, Rayo kaji phor lor tor tor khun phantharakrathadet [‘Little raja’: Police major general Khun Phantharakratchadet] (Bangkok: Thammachat Press, 1996), p. 45Google Scholar.

27 Kitiarsa, Pattana, ‘Magic monks and spirit mediums in the politics of Thai popular religion’, Inter-Asia Cultural Studies, 6, 2 (2005): 211CrossRefGoogle Scholar. A useful gloss of saiyasat and its various elements is in Pasuk Phongpaichit and Chris Baker, ‘The spirits, the stars, and Thai politics’, pp. 8–11, a lecture given at the Siam Society, 2 Dec. 2008, and available on New Mandala: http://asiapacific.anu.edu.au/newmandala/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/pasuk-and-baker-on-spirits-stars-and-politics.pdf (last accessed on 4 Oct. 2010).

28 Skilling, Peter, ‘King, sangha and Brahmans: Ideology, ritual and power in pre-modern Siam’, in Buddhism, power and political order, ed. Harris, Ian (London and New York: Routledge, 2007), pp. 185–6Google Scholar.

29 Bloomfield, Maurice, The Atharvaveda (Strassburg: Verlag Von Karl J. Trübner, 1899), pp. 5–7Google Scholar.

30 Justin McDaniel, personal communication, 1 July 2008. I have translated Thai terms for sastra and vidhya as ‘knowledge’.

31 The initiation rite is described in detail in Niranam, Ran, Jom witthaya yut phutthakkhom Khao Or saolin haeng muang Phatthalung [The Khao Or masters of the science of struggle and Buddhist incantations: The shaolin of Phatthalung] (Bangkok: Wasi Khri-echan, 2007), pp. 90–5Google Scholar.

32 Wet Worawit, Khao Or witthayalai saiwet haeng sayam [Khao Or: Siam's academy of Vedic knowledge] (Bangkok: Romfa Sayam, n.d.).

33 Mulholland, Jean, Medicine, magic and evil spirits (Canberra: Faculty of Asian Studies, Australian National University, 1987), pp. 137–9Google Scholar.

34 Samphan, whose book ‘Little raja’ was pirated, tells the story on p. 11.

35 Kaosaen, Daenget al., Lek lai mi jing [Fluid iron exists!] (Nonthaburi: Butsarakham Publishing, 2006)Google Scholar.

36 Mana Khunweechuay, ‘Chum jon haeng lum nam thalesap songkhla phor sor 2437–2465 [Bandit gangs of the Songkhla lakes basin]’, (M.A. thesis, Sinlapakorn University, 2003), p. 126.

37 Ibid., p. 21.

38 Crawfurd, John, Journal of an embassy from the governor-general of India to the courts of Siam and Cochin China (Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press, 1967Google Scholar; Oxford in Asia Historical Reprints).

39 Thetsako, et al. , ‘Thalesap songkhla [The songkhla lakes]’, in Saranukrom watthanatham phak tai [The encyclopaedia of southern Thai culture] (Bangkok: Munnithi Saranukrom Watthanatham Thai, 1999), vol. 7, p. 3058Google Scholar. On the silting up of the bay and the formation of the peninsula, see p. 3062, discussed in English at http://asiapacific.anu.edu.au/newmandala/2009/07/08/review-of-southern-thai-encyclopedia/ (last accessed on 4 Oct. 2010).

40 Donner, Wolf, The five faces of Thailand: An economic geography (St Lucia, Queensland: University of Queensland Press, 1978), p. 417Google Scholar. See also supplementary pages, Map 2 of 1897 which still shows Satingpra as a landmass distinct from the mainland. I am indebted to Jakkrit Sangkhamanee, a member of the Mainland Southeast Asia Writing Group at the Australian National University and a native of Songkhla, for the local reference to Satingpra as ‘Big Island’.

41 Lesap rao [Our lakes], ed. Wiwat Suthiwiphakorn (Songkhla: Songkhla Ratchaphat University and Prince of Songkla University, Oct. 2007), vol. 1, pp. 101–3.

42 Mana, ‘Bandit gangs’, p. 35.

43 Ibid., pp. 27, 29.

44 Ibid., pp. 25–8, 36.

45 Ibid., pp. 37–9.

46 Suwannathat-Pian, Kobkua, Thai–Malay relations: Traditional intra-regional relations from the seventeenth to the early twentieth centuries (Singapore: Oxford University Press, 1988), p. 66Google Scholar.

47 This is Prince Damrong Rajanubhab's observation in Udomsombat, Luang, Rama III and the Siamese expedition to Kedah in 1839: The dispatches of Luang Udomsombat, ed. Corfield, Justin, trans. Skinner, Cyril (Clayton, Vic.: Centre of Southeast Asian Studies, Monash University, 1993), p. 16Google Scholar.

48 Mana, ‘Bandit gangs’, p. 46. Appendix III in Tej Bunnag, The provincial administration of Siam, 1892–1915 (Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press, 1977) makes clear that while the monthon was named ‘Nakhon Si Thammarat’, the administrative centre was at Songkhla.

49 Mana, ‘Bandit gangs’, p. 40.

50 Ibid., p. 132.

51 Bunnag, The provincial administration of Siam, pp. 122–5.

52 Mana, ‘Bandit gangs’, p. 50.

53 Manirote, Pramuan, ‘Jon phatthalung korani tamnan jon haeng tambon dawn sai [Phatthalung bandits: Bandit legends of Dawnsai sub-district]’, Thaksin khadi, 4, 1 (1994): 58–9Google Scholar.

54 This assumption of linearity from banditry in 1900 to insurgency in the 1960s needs to be scrutinised. For such an extrapolation of earlier banditry and nak leng, see Bon senthang phu banthat tamnan kan tor su duai kamlang awut khong prachachon phatthalung trang satun [On Phu Banthat way: A history of the armed struggle of the Phatthalung, Trang and Satun people] (Bangkok: Khrongkan Chapho Kit Phu Banthat, 2001), p. 74Google Scholar.

55 Songmuang, Sangop, ‘Sut narai’, Thaksin khadi, 4, 1 (1994): 32–4Google Scholar.

56 Nartsupha, Chatthip and Chanikornpradit, Phunsak, Setthakit muban phak tai fang tawan-ok nai adit [The southern Thai village economy of the east coast in the past] (Bangkok: Sangsan Publications, 1997), pp. 72–3Google Scholar, which takes this point from Aeusrivongse, Nidhi, Chat thai muang thai baeprian lae anusawari [Thai nation, Thai land: Textbooks and monuments] (Bangkok: Matichon, 1995)Google Scholar, especially ch. 2 on the concept of the people's state from southern Thai literary sources.

57 Pramuan, ‘Phatthalung bandits’, p. 62; Ran Niranam, ‘The Khao Or masters of the science of struggle’, pp. 152–69; Lom Phengkaeo, ‘Chum jon dawnsai rung dawnsai lae dam huaphrae [The Dawnsai bandit gang: Rung Dawnsai and Dam Huaphrae]’, Thaksin khadi, 4, 1 (1994): 40–53.

58 Mana, ‘Bandit gangs’, p. 142, and Pramuan, ‘Phatthalung bandits’, p. 66. Rung was called Khun Phat, and Dam was called Khun Atsadong Phraiwan; Lom Phengkaeo, ‘The Dawnsai bandit gang’, p. 42. Much of the evidence for the Rung Dawnsai and Dam Huaphrae gang comes from oral sources.

59 As George Quinn has shown, Indonesian thieves also made use of manuals of divination and spells in planning a heist; Reynolds, Craig J., ‘Thai manual knowledge: Theory and practice’, in Seditious histories: Contesting Thai and Southeast Asian pasts (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2006), p. 217Google Scholar.

60 Mana, ‘Bandit gangs’, p. 143.

61 Ibid., pp. 109–10. Jaophraya Yommarat's tenure in this position lasted from 1896–1906.

62 Johnston, David B., ‘Bandit, nakleng, and peasant in rural Thai society’, pp. 90–101 in Contributions to Asian Studies (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1980)Google Scholar, vol. 15, Special Issue, Royalty and commoners: Essays in Thai administrative, economic, and social history. See also Chaidaisuk, Peerasak, Chat sua wai lai [Once a tiger, always a tiger] (Bangkok: Matichon, 2008)Google Scholar.

63 Sombat Chantornvong, ‘Local godfathers in Thai politics’, in Money and power, ed. McVey, p. 55.

64 This is the main argument in Yoshinori Nishizaki, ‘The domination of a fussy strongman’, a study of Banharn Silpa-archa whose provincial power base is in Suphanburi to the west of Bangkok.

65 James Ockey, ‘From nakleng to jaopho: Traditional and modern patrons’, ch. 4 in his Making democracy: Leadership, class, gender, and political participation in Thailand (Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2004)Google Scholar.

66 Pramuan, ‘Phatthalung bandits’, p. 88; Pallegoix, Jean Baptiste, Dictionarium linguae thai sive siamensis interpretatione latina, gallica et anglica illustratum (Farnborough: Gregg International, 1972 [1854]), p. 458Google Scholar, also glosses nak leng as ‘rascal’, ‘vagrant’; Bradley, Dan Beach, Siamese vernacular dictionary (Bangkok: Khurusapha Press, 1971 [1873]), p. 781Google Scholar.

67 Phongphaibun, Suthiwong, ‘Nak leng’, in Saranukrom watthanatham phak tai [The encyclopaedia of southern Thai culture] (Bangkok: Munnithi Saranukrom Watthanatham Thai, 1999), vol. 4, pp. 3673–5Google Scholar. For further discussion of nak leng in the south, see also http://asiapacific.anu.edu.au/newmandala/2009/07/08/review-of-southern-thai-encyclopedia/ and http://asiapacific.anu.edu.au/newmandala/2010/03/12/review-of-peerasak/ (last accessed on 4 Oct. 2010).

68 Samphan, ‘Little raja’, p. 219.

69 Money and power, ed. McVey, p. 8.

70 Soontravanich, Chalong, ‘Small arms, romance, and crime and violence in post WW II Thai society’, Tonan Ajia Kenkyu (Southeast Asian Studies), 43, 1 (2005): 30–1Google Scholar.

71 Davids, Thomas William Rhys and Stede, William, The Pali Text Society's Pali–English dictionary (London: Luzac & Company, 1966), p. 273Google Scholar.

72 Rajanubhab, Damrong, Nithan borannakhadi [Tales of old] (Bangkok: Bannakit, 1963), part 11, pp. 216–30Google Scholar.

73 Nordholt, Henk Schulte, ‘The jago in the shadow: Crime and “order” in the colonial state in Java’, Review of Indonesian and Malaysian Affairs, 25, 1 (1991): 75Google Scholar.

74 Ibid., p. 76.

75 Ibid., p. 78; Nordholt, Henk Schulte and Till, Margreet van, ‘Colonial criminals in Java, 1870–1910’, in Figures of criminality in Indonesia, the Philippines, and colonial Vietnam, ed. Rafael, Vincente L. (Ithaca: Southeast Asia Program, Cornell University, 1999), p. 68Google Scholar.

76 Ileto, Reynaldo C. explored some of these commonalities in his ‘Religion and anticolonial movements’, in The Cambridge history of Southeast Asia, ed. Tarling, Nicholas (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), vol. 2, part 1, pp. 193–244Google Scholar.

77 Khun Phan published this account in a magazine in August 1979, which is reproduced in Samphan, ‘Little raja’, pp. 62–73. Khun Phan states that he was over 20 years old, but the incident took place in July 1930, which would have made him aged 32 years. Here and elsewhere, Khun Phan tended to underestimate his age.

78 Dechathongkham, Akhom, Hua chuak wua chon [Tethered heads, fighting bulls] (Bangkok: Thailand Research Foundation, 2000)Google Scholar; Gilmore, David D., Manhood in the making: Cultural concepts of masculinity (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1990), p. 121Google Scholar, suggests that the expendability of men may help explain the constant emphasis on risk-taking as evidence of manliness.

79 See http://asiapacific.anu.edu.au/newmandala/2009/07/08/review-of-southern-thai-encyclopedia/ (last accessed on 4 Oct. 2010).

80 Phanthawutikhanon, Wiwat, ‘Review of Akhom Thongkham, Tethered heads, fighting bulls’, Sarakhadi, 16, 189 (2000): 79Google Scholar.

81 Machismo is a ‘bellwether term’ in discussions of Latin American sexuality, and I introduce it here as a first approximation for what I am driving at; Changing men and masculinities in Latin America, ed. Guttman, Matthew C. (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2003), p. 18Google Scholar.

82 Powers, John, A bull of a man: Images of masculinity, sex, and the body in Indian Buddhism (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

83 Reynolds, Craig J., ‘Power’, in Critical terms for the study of Buddhism, ed. Lopez, Donald S. Jr (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 2005), pp. 216–17Google Scholar.

84 In this section I am indebted to Tamthai Dilokvidhyarat of the Mainland Southeast Asia Writing Group at the Australian National University for relevant discussion.

85 Samphan, ‘Little raja’, pp. 121–2.

86 Mills, Mary Beth, Thai women in the global labor force: Consuming desires, contested selves (New Brunswick, New Jersey and London: Rutgers University Press, 1999), pp. 96–7Google Scholar.

87 Tannenbaum, Nicola, ‘Tattoos: Invulnerability and power in Shan cosmology’, American Ethnologist, 14, 4 (1987): 700CrossRefGoogle Scholar, makes this case for the Shan in northern Thailand.

88 Homosocial is defined here as ‘the seeking, enjoyment, and/or preference for the company of the same sex’; Lipman-Blumen, Jean, ‘Toward a homosocial theory of sex roles: An explanation of the sex segregation of social institutions’, Signs, 1, 3 (1976): 16CrossRefGoogle Scholar, Special Issue, Women and the workplace: The implications of occupational segregation.

89 McCargo, Duncan, ‘Thai politics as reality TV’, Journal of Asian Studies, 68, 1 (2009): 17CrossRefGoogle Scholar.